The Leftover Fragment
by Aiko Isari
Summary: She doesn't remember, not a thing. It all got erased, including the man who is so fond of her and cried for some reason she doesn't know, and the people she meets in the 'net are too familiar but all her memories are melding together now ever since her children died. Nothing makes sense, and nothing is beloved. That's what time travel does to you.
1. 1

When they died, she felt nothing and everything.

Nothing, established thoroughly in the numbness in her system. She can't feel the blood pumping through her veins. She is weighed down by the oppressiveness of the room. That girl, she has a name, she is a purpose, what are these things? Are they like the pain in her arteries, the urge to move and scream and kill?

She has always had pieces of memories, some clearer, some worse than obscured. Seven years of these, and the first ten empty as a sheet of paper. She remembers running on desert sand in nothing but a torn seed sack with holes because she got lost and ran too far, no way to see, barely any water but her spit. A beautiful song ties them together and rips them apart because that's what she's good at, isn't it? She remembers concrete and bloody heels and sobbing because there's her sister writhing on the floor and she's supposed to take care of her, she's such a horrible daughter, no wonder no one wants her-

And yet with all of the pain, there is that numbness again. Her children are fading away, the Mastemon who had come to her as a pup and a devil, wings and arms wrapped around her even in death, MetalGarurumon nosing her cheek with cold love before he death charged ExoGrimmon and howled his laughter, Imperialdramon swinging his white sword one last time as the Dianamon gave her final blow, collapsing to nearly pieces in her arms and she can't even find the strength to scream, or even to pick up her legs. She can't feel anything. She can feel everything.

For the first time she can remember, Sayo faints.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** So... yeah. this is... special. It's also full of spoilers. I'm not even going to tell you what, or how, or where. I'm just going to post it. Let's see what happens.

Challenges: Gameverse Boot Camp prompt 'abandoned', and Groundhog Day Loop Challenge


	2. 2

_Warning for child abuse, violence, and death. Among other to be revealed things._

* * *

She dreams of another world, another time where she was enveloped in the love of the sea, the sea and two people who bickered but never fought, of a gentle hand that didn't take her by the ear and throw, chiding her all the while, because the blows were her fault. She was supposed to be good and stay home, hide under the table, not overcook the food. Take to training... what training?

She had fled then because she hadn't remembered. Hadn't remembered and boiled with the extent of her hate, boiled with the extent of how much she wanted to rip off the woman's head. It would have been good, so good…

Didn't happen, lucky her. Didn't happen, they just left her with a lonely girl who took and took until a lot of herself was taken in return.

Didn't happen, she was first thrown into an ugly smelling place with ugly smelling people and wanting to cry but laughing instead because it hurt _so much_ -

Sayo dreams and wakes and dreams and wakes and the cycle never brings her enough memories. They're not even pieces, barely even experiences. She's lost ten years of her life and she'll lose the rest of them if she keeps sleeping but it's so much better than trying to care at this point. She's lost too many memories and getting them back is like maggots in her veins.

Artemis is dutiful. It's frightening almost _(because in another life, she's a psychopath who only cares about Sayo living and little else and has to be melted like ice cubes)_ because of how much she frets, making her eat and wash and live when she just doesn't want to. Sometimes her rabbit curls closer like a stuffed animal and it hurts, the love hurts and she wonders why she bothers with it.

 _(In her dreams, she understands because she died for love once.)_


	3. 3

That person, what's his name, she can't remember, always watches her whenever he calls with his spotty connection. His hair spikes just in view and even through the screen she can sense how much he wants to hug her until she hugs back. She still doesn't know how he has her email. He's always looking so mournful, so sorry. She doesn't understand why. Apparently he's not supposed to be here anyway but the veil is weak and he loves too much. He loves her too much.

Silly man, doesn't he know what love does to a person?

She looks at her brother and thinks that, all of the time. She remembers his anger at the needle marks vacantly, vacantly because she didn't think much of it at the time and can't think much of it now. She relishes his hand in hers when he comes to meet her and his steady refusal to ask if she is okay like Yuki wants to and kind of does.

They both know she's not and it hurts.

She really hates being the screw up. If she could get rid of herself, she would, wipe her existence from them and give them a better life without her inability to do anything right in it.

Even in her dreams she fucks up. How pathetic is that?

After all, she couldn't even save Artemis.

Artemis, like all of the others, had to save _her._


	4. 4

_As a side note, this isn't always told in order._

* * *

The wraiths. Not etheral enough for a name, but nothing else fits. Nothing, not even demons.

The wraiths, she knows them, she knows their faces, she needs to kill and kill and _kill_ or it won't end-

She slices one in the face. It laughs, throws her aside. She's nothing, nothing compared to them. Her babies, still so small from lack of training, defend her, even though she doesn't want defense, she wants _death._ A monster is nothing compared to a demon and they all know it so they laugh. She picks herself up anyway. She screams and lunges anyway.

These are what she was created to kill, what she was molded for. Them and one other-

 _But you've already killed that, you sick freak._

 _'You don't want_ them _to be next, right? Please understand, this is for everyone's sake."_

No, no it wasn't. It was just for yours and yours alone, don't sit there and say what it was for you aren't doing anything-

The data bursts, full of laughter and malice and rage. It will remember her. It will remember her face.

She doesn't care. Let the dead remember something for once.

Let the dead remember how much they have hurt her.


	5. 5

This is stupid. This is beyond stupid and crazy and reckless and here she is anyway because she has nothing to lose, damn her. HEre she is, running through the too bright colors and the masses of logins.

Her EDEN login is almost ten years old, which has never made sense because EDEN wasn't even up and running in CITY until she was thirteen, thirteen and just out of-

No, no shut up, shut up brain, tune that out, put it away, don't think about _her_ , don't think-

" _Don't worry, this is to make sure you feel it."_

She shuts her eyes and loses herself to the flight of the avatar log-in. It really is flying. She's done it before in her dreams, in her dreams and maybe as a child, as some child who was loved for some reason. She is loved now, she knows, but back in the dreams, it doesn't hurt.

Maybe back then she didn't destroy everything that matters.

 _(Or maybe she did and that was what they wanted.)_

She needs to listen to her therapist more. Maybe when she gets back, if she's allowed back at all.

Sayo lands on the EDEN entrance and touches the top of her head, remembering five days ago when Julia had patted her hat with so much affection in that simple tapping gesture that it seemed ready to burst her hand. She has to wonder if Julia hadn't had sex in a while. She usually wasn't that outwardly nice to anyoneexcept her niece, not without good reason.

She wonders for a few seconds longer, and then realizes she's late.

Damn it. Not again.


	6. 6

Noisy.

These people are _noisy_. It's almost like being in a crowd between the two of them, only easier because there is less being forgotten here than there is in a crowd.

(Right? She's telling the truth, isn't she?)

They didn't have to look at each other in the chat, but this is real life, real conversation. She's never realized how much she _hates_ it.

Still. She likes EDEN. It's a nice little garden. Lots of people tend to it and make it grow and spread.

(But it's not _your_ garden, is it?)

Ignore the thought, keep moving forward. Don't think of the kind person looking at you so sadly from that monitor, don't think of the strange misshapen longing in his eyes, don't think of _any of it_ -

Nokia, Akiino, is the epitome of noise, but it somehow comforts Sayo to have her constant chatter about anything and everything. Most of it is new to her. She doesn't spend much time at home. She will now though, won't she? She's not allowed to fight anymore, has nothing to fight with.

Arata himself, Bluebox, is actually rather playful, sober too, and easily irritated. Sayo wants to play with his hair, see if cat ears come out. He flicks her hat a lot, flicks it and her nose and smiles at her like he knows how _not okay_ she actually is.

They are good people, strange but good. For some reason, they are also very, very familiar.

She's not sure if she likes that.


	7. 7

_Thump._

Her heartbeat thuds, _too loud, too fast_ , taking command of her ears. It hurts her chest. It steals the space her lungs need and replaces it with thick blood.

Pain courses and her body quakes and hits the ground, thinking of the death, the dying screaming and the pain of two clashing at one until someone's hand draws it away like a speck of dust.

She looks at this boy, thinks of his face and his protection. He's coming closer. He's reaching for her. He looks so _sad,_ like he's forgotten how to smile. Like he's forgotten what laughter sounds like.

How is she supposed to fix that? How is she supposed to know what laughter is?

Why does she want to help him? His black hair falls over her eyes as she scrambles back, as he moves closer. He cups her cheek. The hand moves down her chest, past her breasts, and reaches. Past the avatar's skin, into her, It takes her heart and holds it gently.

Then it whispers.

" _I love you too."_

Her mind is gone, just like that.


	8. 8

Par for the course, no one sees her passed out on the server floor. Lucky for her, she's never been able to stay down no matter how many times she's hit. She gets up, rubs the fading images from her mind.

Sayo sighs. Her body feels heavy.

She hears a man's voice in the distance, deep and wan and warm. Like her father's, but moreso. So much love, more pain than love.

Her father is always gentle. This person, who has hair like hers, seems to want to be.

She shakes her head and keeps walking. That person isn't calling her name.

Then there's a ghost. Or not a ghost. They seem friendly anyway.

"It's time for you to hatch from your egg," they say, and the baby Terriermon flops into her arms, nuzzling her. Guilt stabs her in the middle.

Sayo hadn't even known he had been missing.


	9. 9

Roni doesn't care, of course not. All he cares about is being in her arms and eating food. He waves his ears in the strange boy's face. The boy says he's not a ghost, and chases the real ghost away, the one who was calling someone else's name.

Sayo rubs behind her ears. Her head hurts.

"Shall we get started?" the boy, Yuugo, hides his discomfort from her. Or, well, he tries to. He fails. He doesn't understand why Digimon, who he sees as programs, love her so. She doesn't understand either, but Roni tells her it's because she's kind.

She believes him. It's hard, but when her body moves and punches the Kurisarimon into an opposite wall, it makes a little more sense.

Why does the ghost boy have a nosebleed?


	10. 10

Pain.

Painpainithurts mama stop it I'm sorry, I'll protect them, I'll be good I'm sorry mama why are you hurting me like this why are you letting them _hurt me like this_ , you **promised me.**

Someone is apologizing. Someone is crying. So many are crying there is so much-

Pain.

Doesn't matter. None of it matters it all needs to stop. Artemis, Artie, where are you, you said you'd protect me, I really failed you huh i'm the worst, the absolute lowest of the low I

I deserve this.

Whatever this is.

I failed my mama and papa and everyone I love this is _what I get._


	11. 11

She wakes up in the middle of the street, wakes up and she feels nothing. No pain, no heat or cold. Only sadness. A strange sadness like failing to hold someone's hand and it-

Is nothing compared to the stares. She hates to be stared at. Hates these eyes tied to her like camera lenses, hates-

A car is screeching down the road. It picks her up as smoothly as a slide pulls her down.

Tears. There were tear stains on her shirt.

And a familiar smell. A family smell.

Her uncle. Or… someone. Someone important.

She's suddenly tired again.


	12. 12

Just do your job and it's all over, just do your job and everything will be fine.

They say that but she's stopped believing it.

Can't be helped, that. She does her very best, like she's been taught to do and it really simply isn't enough. Especially not now that if she's not wandering her home, she spent her days either working or wandering or in tears.

The word forms at her lips. She doesn't say it.

Then, Nokia asks for help. For whatever reason, Sayo can't refuse. Or maybe she doesn't want to.


End file.
